The Surfing Butterfly, a personal blog of a very ordinary foreigner fulfilling her bond obligations in sunny Singapore, while pursuing an idealistic path towards helping people and companies reach their fullest potential. Or at the very least, make the world a little happier to live in.

Kiran Bedi and her crime solution: Prison meditation

TEDWomen has just uploaded a talk by Kiran Bedi, a courageous policewoman and now, a prison commissioner in one of the toughest prisons in India.

In just nine minutes, she shows how women can bring effective solutions to male-dominated industries such as crime prevention. She might be the stepping stone to eventually eradicating corruption and preventing crimes (instead of punishing crimes) by bringing in empathy, fairness and sensitivity. Emotions that women are not immune to.

Personally, I like her 90/10 philosophy of life that she inherited from her father, which when roughly paraphrased:

100 things happen in your life.
You are responsible for 90 of them.
If they’re good, enjoy it.
If they’re bad, learn from it.
The other 10 are out of your control.

In her case, she brought in sensitivity to the cold and harsh prisons. With her belief that “Crime is the project of distorted minds”, she introduced meditation to over 10,000 prisoners. Thus, giving them the opportunity to reflect, practise mindfulness, and eventually obtain a calm and peaceful mind.

Kiran Bedi is the epitome of how women are slowly changing society for the better, and from her TEDTalk, there’s no stopping this woman from achieving her life ambitions anytime soon.